San Francisco University's post-graduate course, "The Nyuck Nyuck Nyuck In American Society"

SAN FRANCISCO (CAP) - Twitter was abuzz this week with incredulous tweets from teenagers throughout the U.S. who expressed amazement at discovering that the Three Stooges were apparently real people.

Nobody told me the stooges were real ... ? How am I just finding this out?! posted @lizamagong after seeing the new film version of The Three Stooges directed by the Farrelly brothers.

And @BabyDee22 sounds similarly surprised, tweeting: Guys, the Stooges were real dudes in like the 20s or something! #mindblown.

After some back-and-forth, general consensus among the teens seemed to be that, while they had at first thought the Stooges were newly invented movie characters, it turns out they were actual people with a superhuman capacity to withstand punishment delivered via eye pokes, nose pulls and blows from sledgehammers.

I guess they made all these B&W documenteries about them? I asked my grampa & he said they wore shorts, tweeted LuvCarly67, apparently referring to the short subjects made by Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard during the 1930s and 1940s. And @sammyLoveB tweeted, They had to keep replacing Stooges because they kept killing each other w/ hammers n shit. #gangsta.

Oddly enough, the tweets drew the attention of popular Twitter contributor and film critic Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago), who insisted that contrary to what the teenagers believed, the Stooges were not in fact real but actually fictional characters played by actors. The Stooges were about as real as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, tweeted Ebert.

But apparently Ebert's tweets just confused many of the teens further. For instance, @BoonAss899 replied, WTF is a Bugs Bunny? AYSOS? lol. And very few other teens follow Ebert's tweets, opting instead to follow Twitterers like @ladygaga.

Monsters, just found out the 3 Stooges were real - WTF? @ladygaga tweeted yesterday afternoon.

Even Sarah Killen, the woman whose Twitter feed was made into a television show after Conan O'Brien chose at random to follow her, weighed in, saying that she didn't know if the Three Stooges were real or not, but that she still thought that peanut butter was yummy.

I still can't believe I followed this girl, tweeted @ConanOBrien later that day.

Meanwhile, the Stooges debate rages on among Twitter teens - many of them reportedly "assholes" - via a flurry of tweets using all of Twitter's recently expanded 141 characters.

And things got even more complicated when someone tweeted that in addition to the Stooges, the Titanic was also real. Wtf I never heard the titanic was real :/ who knew?, tweeted @HopeDoo78 and hundreds of other Twitter teens.

This prompted @ebertchicago to respond, Calm down, Titanic was just a movie. AYSOS?

SATIRE

Jasmine V confirms she was knocked up by alien abductors, plans to keep the baby to help fight stereotypes of young Latina women who are pregnant with extraterrestrial offspring «» Donald Trump picks Matt Damon as his running mate, says the pair have successfully alienated women, Muslims, Mexicans, blacks and gays, just need to offend Jews and Asians for the clean sweep «» President Obama visits Alaska, vows to reunite cast of 'Northern Exposure' for show's 20th anniversary «» Experts say the best way to combat this is to make Aunt Midge sleep on the pullout sofa which will wreak havoc on her sciatica and eventually force her to seek a better night's sleep at a local hotel «» Experts say terrorists have been hording coupons for Bell's stuffing for months, forcing many Americans to either pay full price or go with bland, dry generic boxed stuffing «» The man credited with inventing the "Safety Is My Goal" and "How Is My Driving?" bumper stickers that spoke for a generation of livery drivers succumbed to injuries sustained after being rear-ended by a box truck «» The limited-time only beverage is available in Rancid or Sludge flavors mixed with one or two scoops of yesterday's coffee grounds and is served in a black cup only to those who verbally denounce all organized religions when ordering «» Inspired by their Missouri brethren, Wolverine players refuse to take the field and will "focus solely on their studies" until the University retains more attractive cheerleaders «» The newly revamped tourist attraction will feature a gift shop, a food court, and a stack of three-ring binders with pictures of fish that visitors can thumb through «» The ACLU is fighting the company's decision to pull the popular t-shirts from store shelves, saying it will unfairly force society's outcasts back to shopping at K-Mart for their apparel needs «» Critics say while the shake is indeed delicious, it's too soon after the Russian airline disaster to try to capitalize on it and note the company should "give it another month or so" «» Instead, half a dozen moderators will take the stage and fire barbs at each of the candidates and then see who can provide the most sarcastic response in their absence «» Both Hewlett-Packard companies announce they're each splitting into five new companies to create a voicemail tree so complex that none of them will actually need any customer service reps to answer phones «» Federal government's plan to release thousands of non-violent prisoners contingent upon them to "remember what Uncle Barry did for you" and make sure they vote Democrat in the next election «» The Conservative Liberals In Transition Outreach Intervention Society announces its support of Hillary Clinton; CLITOrIS members say she brings "the right amount of vagina" to the table «» New Halloween app Treatr allows kids to tap pictures of neighborhood houses to trick or treat, saves "all that time walking" and increases candy acquisition rates by 72% «» Retail chain CVS has bowed to pressure to stop stocking bags of metal filings in the same aisle as the Halloween candy, at least at this time of year «» Royals, Mets agree to blindfold random infielder every other inning to liven up the game, provide blooper reel footage when they cringe every time the ball is hit «» New education reform bill replaces D's and F's with frownie-face stickers to soften the blow and help kids "feel successful even in their failures" «» IBM engineers mark another milestone in artificial intelligence as Watson wins $250,000 on Fan Duel, will attempt to decipher teenage text lingo next «»

Jasmine V confirms she was knocked up by alien abductors, plans to keep the baby to help fight stereotypes of young Latina women who are pregnant with extraterrestrial offspring «» Donald Trump picks Matt Damon as his running mate, says the pair have successfully alienated women, Muslims, Mexicans, blacks and gays, just need to offend Jews and Asians for the clean sweep «» President Obama visits Alaska, vows to reunite cast of 'Northern Exposure' for show's 20th anniversary «» Experts say the best way to combat this is to make Aunt Midge sleep on the pullout sofa which will wreak havoc on her sciatica and eventually force her to seek a better night's sleep at a local hotel «» Experts say terrorists have been hording coupons for Bell's stuffing for months, forcing many Americans to either pay full price or go with bland, dry generic boxed stuffing «» The man credited with inventing the "Safety Is My Goal" and "How Is My Driving?" bumper stickers that spoke for a generation of livery drivers succumbed to injuries sustained after being rear-ended by a box truck «» The limited-time only beverage is available in Rancid or Sludge flavors mixed with one or two scoops of yesterday's coffee grounds and is served in a black cup only to those who verbally denounce all organized religions when ordering «» Inspired by their Missouri brethren, Wolverine players refuse to take the field and will "focus solely on their studies" until the University retains more attractive cheerleaders «» The newly revamped tourist attraction will feature a gift shop, a food court, and a stack of three-ring binders with pictures of fish that visitors can thumb through «» The ACLU is fighting the company's decision to pull the popular t-shirts from store shelves, saying it will unfairly force society's outcasts back to shopping at K-Mart for their apparel needs «» Critics say while the shake is indeed delicious, it's too soon after the Russian airline disaster to try to capitalize on it and note the company should "give it another month or so" «» Instead, half a dozen moderators will take the stage and fire barbs at each of the candidates and then see who can provide the most sarcastic response in their absence «» Both Hewlett-Packard companies announce they're each splitting into five new companies to create a voicemail tree so complex that none of them will actually need any customer service reps to answer phones «» Federal government's plan to release thousands of non-violent prisoners contingent upon them to "remember what Uncle Barry did for you" and make sure they vote Democrat in the next election «» The Conservative Liberals In Transition Outreach Intervention Society announces its support of Hillary Clinton; CLITOrIS members say she brings "the right amount of vagina" to the table «» New Halloween app Treatr allows kids to tap pictures of neighborhood houses to trick or treat, saves "all that time walking" and increases candy acquisition rates by 72% «» Retail chain CVS has bowed to pressure to stop stocking bags of metal filings in the same aisle as the Halloween candy, at least at this time of year «» Royals, Mets agree to blindfold random infielder every other inning to liven up the game, provide blooper reel footage when they cringe every time the ball is hit «» New education reform bill replaces D's and F's with frownie-face stickers to soften the blow and help kids "feel successful even in their failures" «» IBM engineers mark another milestone in artificial intelligence as Watson wins $250,000 on Fan Duel, will attempt to decipher teenage text lingo next «»